Satellites look into a volcano's hell

This view of Tolbachik Volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula was captured in infrared and visible light on Dec. 1 by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA's Earth Observing 1 satellite. The infrared readings in red highlight hot lava flows from the volcano.

The visible-light view from EO-1's Advanced Land Imager, captured on Dec. 1, shows billows of ash and steam, with a stream of dark lava cutting across the landscape.

In contrast, the infrared-plus-visible view reveals a nightmarish red river, running through a bilious green landscape. This version of the scene gets its eerie look from the false colors used to represent different wavelengths in the infrared part of the spectrum. The blood-red shade reflects the high surface temperatures of the lava, while the shades of green signify colder surroundings on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

A similar infrared-plus-visible image comes from the ASTER instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite. The ASTER image, our third view of Tolbachik's hell, combines a picture of the volcano from July 19 with fresh infrared data from Dec. 3 showing the lava flow.

The visible-light view from NASA's EO-1 satellite shows Tolbachik's lava flow as a river of darkness cutting through the snowy scene.

NASA / GSFC / METI / ERSDAC / JAROS via AFP

A false-color view from the ASTER imager on NASA's Terra satellite shows the Tolbachik Volcano and its surroundings in infrared and visible wavelengths. A scene from July 19 provides the background, with vegetation in red, older lava flows in dark gray and snow in white. A nighttime thermal infrared image, acquired Dec. 3, has been overlaid on the earlier image and highlights the hot lava flows in bright yellow.